


Destructible

by Escalus



Series: Scott McCall Appreciation Week 2019 [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s05e11 The Last Chimera, Gen, Injury, Post-Episode: s05e10 Status Asthmaticus, Responsibility, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 16:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18319115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escalus/pseuds/Escalus
Summary: A look at what would have happened if Melissa McCall was as good a mother as people like to pretend she was.





	Destructible

_Give them hope._

Scott lies on his back in the darkness of his room, and the words press on him like a skull mask shoved over his head. His mother made it sound so easy, as if all he had to do was dig through his closet and find enough _hope_ to go around. Why didn’t she tell him to give them pain, disappointment, and self-loathing? He had plenty to spare.

How does he give people something he doesn’t have?

When he had felt like this before, he had always had some place to go, but now there was a chasm between himself and Stiles. It tears him apart that Stiles’ belief in him and what he stood for was so fragile that his oldest friend would scheme and lie and conceal like a third grader hiding a broken vase. He wants to know when _exactly_ had Stiles stopped seeing him as a human being. When _exactly_ had Stiles stopped seeing him as a friend and started looking at him like some sort of authority? Scott had risked everything to save Stiles from the nogitsune – that risk had cost Allison her life – but somehow that hadn’t been enough for Stiles to trust in him.

He doesn’t hate Stiles for the way he’s changed. He can’t. They’ve all changed and not all of those changes have been for the better. Kira is gone, and he has no idea where she went. Her parents have taken her to get help, and Noshiko had been coldly firm when she told him he shouldn’t worry about it. Then she told him that he had done quite enough, and Scott couldn’t do anything else but leave. Ken had made an effort to be sympathetic, but Scott doesn’t think he meant it. 

At least Mr. Yukimura had made an effort. Liam must be roaming the night, somewhere out there. Scott hopes that the boy isn’t alone, but he doesn’t want to see his beta. His body still aches, even though Liam finished brutally beating him hours ago. There is no way around the idea that if Mason hadn’t arrived when he did, Scott would be dead at Liam’s hands. Liam wants him dead; there is no pretending that it isn’t true. The full moon – Super or not – doesn’t create new thoughts in a werewolf’s head; it simply amplifies the urges they already have. His beta had etched the truth of that statement into his flesh with every blow.

Scott doesn’t even know where Malia or Lydia are. They could be dead too for all he knows. Even if he had an idea on how to get them back, which he doesn’t, he has no clue where to start looking for them. There’s nothing left but deception, violence, and loss.

Finally, he decides he should try to get some sleep, but he can’t even manage that. In addition to his mending bones, he’s still bleeding from the gigantic hole Theo left in his torso. There are no painkillers in the house that will work on him long enough to let him rest. But that’s not what‘s really keeping him awake.

Corey is keeping him awake. Hayden is keeping him awake. Kira is keeping him awake. Above all, Theo is keeping him awake. Two are dead, one is gone, and one is out there working with the Dread Doctors. When he imagines them, they all point out just how stupid his decisions were. So much for the Protector of Beacon Hills; he’s such a failure.

He is still staring up at the ceiling when his mom comes back into the room. He doesn’t say anything to her, but she stands there looking at him until she apparently can’t handle it anymore. 

“I’ll make you some soup.” 

Soon after, he hears her moving around in the kitchen. If he took a guess, she is making him chicken and stars from a can because that has always been his favorite. Scott has never learned why soup is supposed to be good for you, but if his mother wants to make him some to make him feel better, it has to have some value. If it made her forget what happened a few hours ago in the library, she could do anything she wants to.

Listening to her in the kitchen calms him, and maybe he could have eventually fallen asleep, but then the phone rings. It’s so loud he jerks up on the bed, causing unfamiliar pain to shoot through him. He clenches involuntarily. Given the situation in Beacon hills and given the hour, that phone call can only mean bad news.

The sheriff has been found, badly hurt and being rushed into surgery. It must have been another part of Theo’s plan. Stiles found him and brought him to the hospital; Scott can hear him in the background of the call, yelling at anyone within earshot. The duty nurse wants Melissa to come in because the town is in chaos once again and because they also know she can calm Stiles down. Scott stops listening at the point and pulls himself up out of the bed. The strain on his abdomen makes him bite his own tongue to keep from crying out.

He begins to dig through the dresser to find some clothes. He can’t go to the hospital looking like he had just walked out of a warzone. Too many people would ask questions. The pack – if such a thing still exists – hasn’t been the best at keeping things quiet in the past, but that doesn’t mean he can blow the need for secrecy off now. 

“What are you doing?”

“I heard the phone call, Mom …” He turns around, and there’s a tray in her hands. It’s the old bed tray: the one she used to bring him lunch on when he was feverish or weak after an asthma attack and couldn’t go to school. On top of it is one of the same old bowls that she must have dug out of the cabinet. Steam comes off the soup, there’s a glass of what might be ginger ale and some crackers. 

“Get back in that bed right now.” She gestures toward it with her head.

“But the sheriff is –“

She interrupts him; her voice is firm but he can hear what’s going on beneath it. She’s angry with _him._ “There are at least sixteen other nurses in that hospital who can do just as good a job as I can. I’m not going in, and you’re not going anywhere.”

“But Stiles –“ He begins to explain why they should both go.

“Stiles is fine. Stiles will be fine. You won’t be fine if you don’t lay down right this instant.”

Scott stands there, hesitating, because he knows that as stubborn as he can be, his mother can be twice so. 

“Last night, if you remember, I restarted your heart with my bare hands. It was heroic as Hell, I know, so I think I deserve a reward, and the reward I want is for you to get in that _fucking_ bed right now.”

Scott has never ever heard his mother curse at him the way she just did. It shocks him to the core to such a degree that he gets back into the bed without one more word of protest. He still watches her as he does so. He feels like he’s six and broken something important.

“No.” She snaps. “Get out of those clothes and into your pajamas.”

“Mom, I don’t wear pajamas anymore.”

“You don’t sleep in the nude do you?” 

He blushes. “No, I don’t.”

“Then change into whatever you do sleep in.”

His mother’s glare is all the inducement he needs. She stands here, holding that tray, while he changes clothes, as if she expected him to make a run for it. There’s part of him that thinks he should. He can’t meet her eyes when she sees the wound in his chest and her brows come together in furious confusion. 

“It hasn’t closed up. Why hasn’t it closed up?”

Scott doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know why exactly, but with his mother in this state, he doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know why it isn’t healing. Maybe Theo hurt him more badly than he can heal. He can’t tell her that. She’d freak. “Can I have some soup?”

“You know, I always worried about Stiles being your friend, and I was right to be worried. He’s taught you how to deflect a conversation. Now answer my question.”

“Sometimes … sometimes it just takes a little longer.”

Melissa puts the tray down on the bed, trapping Scott on it. “Do you know why injuries and sicknesses make you tired? Because your system is stressed. Your body has endured too much, and it needs time to recover. It happens with humans as well, which is why doctors usually prescribe bed rest. Which is exactly what you’re going to do after you eat something.”

Scott opens his mouth to say something about what else he needs to do, but she cuts him off by handing him a spoon. Chicken-and-stars reminds him of days before he became a werewolf when the only thing he had to worry about was asthma and that he was a born loser. 

The soup is hot, but it’s far too salty. His sense of taste has grown as sharp as his other sense, but he has never told his mother about that. Processed foods tend to taste like plastic more often than not. To tell the truth, he likes eating over at the Yukimuras because Ken makes it a point of pride to use only the freshest ingredients.

He will never tell his mother that. She works, a lot, and the last thing he wants her to do is to come home and try to cook him something from scratch. She’s a good mom, and he doesn’t tell her that enough.

He finishes the soup and the crackers and smiles at her. “I feel better now.”

“You do?” Her answer smile is brilliant.

“So, maybe we can go –“

“Nope. You’re staying in that bed until I’m satisfied that you’re better.” Her smile has vanished and she taps him carefully on the chest right above his wound. “And that means this is fully, completely, one-hundred-percent healed.”

“Mom, I can’t take that much time. There’s too much that I have to do!“

“You can and you will, buster, or I’ll pour mountain ash around the bed and you’ll have to go to the bathroom in a bedpan for the next week. Don’t think I won’t! I empty them every day at work; doing it here would be no problem at all.”

Scott doesn’t wilt under the threat, though he knows his mom means it. If his goal is to let him go to the hospital, he has to make her see reason. 

“Mom, you told me I had to get them back. How can I get Stiles back if I’m not there for him?”

“When I said that, I didn’t mean _immediately._ No one – especially not your friends – should hold it against you if you take a few days to recover from being almost murdered, Scott. Anyone who does, anyone who dares to attack you for not being at someone else’s beck-and-call when you’re injured, can’t possibly see you as a human begin. Those people can go to hell.”

His mother was cursing a lot. It’s how Scott could tell that she was very upset, though she was trying her best not to show it too much. “You know Beacon Hills doesn’t work that way, Mom. The Doctors are out there. Theo’s out there. People are going to get hurt; they’re going to get killed. I can’t take time off while that’s happening.” 

Melissa came and sat down next to him. “Scott. I want you to listen to me. There’s a difference between being responsible for stopping people like the Doctors and being responsible for what they’ve done. If they hurt someone, if they kill someone, that’s not your fault.”

“Is that really true? They’re only able to do what they’re doing because of the ritual …” Scott trailed off. 

“I’m a nurse.”

Scott scoffed. “I know that.”

“I don’t think you understand what that means. I’ve seen plenty of people die. Children. Grandparents. Teenagers. Police officers. They come into the hospital for help and we do our best, but they still die. It happens _all_ the time. I could be the best nurse in the history of nursing, working for the best doctors in the history of medicine, and people are still _going to die._ That’s not our cross to bear, so it certainly isn’t yours. You will do your best, I know you will, and in the end you’ll win, because I believe in you. But you’re going to lose sometimes.”

Scott burst out. “Yet you expect me to lie here while people – people I know – could be dying.”

“Yes, I do.”

“How? How am I supposed to be okay with that?”

“The sheriff could tell you that when a soldier is wounded in battle, they aren’t forced back into the front lines while they’re still hurt. They’re given time to rest and to heal. Battles will be fought in the meantime, battles where very soldier counts. But every good commander knows that forcing wounded soldiers back on the battlefield just gets more people killed.” 

“That’s not what you told me before.” He sounds frustrated to his own ears. What his mother is saying makes sense, but it’s one thing to think about it in the abstract; it’s quite another thing to actually put it into practice. “You told me if I could do something, I had to.”

“Yes, I did say that. But I didn’t say to do something at the expense of your own life. If you go out there and get yourself killed because you didn’t recognize that you have limitations, you aren’t a hero. You certainly aren’t a protector. You’re a martyr.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Scott countered. “Deaton and Argent tried to stop me from taking responsibility for the Dead Pool.” 

“It’s not the same thing. Then, the choice there was between not doing anything in order for you and your back to be safe and risking yourself and your pack to save innocents. This is a choice between doing something – fighting Theo and the Dread Doctors – which is extremely dangerous, and doing something – fighting Theo and the Dread Doctors in your present condition – which is suicidal. You killing yourself isn’t going to save one single person.”

Scott wanted to argue, but he didn’t have any more arguments. He took a deep breath and then another. Hadn’t he been telling himself that he didn’t have anything to give his pack? All his mother was saying was to give himself time to recover. If he did that – if he put himself first for once – would it be so bad?

But he had seen where that type of thinking had led. Peter had put his need for revenge above family. Gerard had put his survival above the Code. Deucalion had put his vision above the needs of his soul. Noshiko’s need for justice had given birth to the nogitsune. Meredith had allowed her self-loathing to make her do horrible things. They had put themselves first, and everyone else had paid for it. He couldn’t be the same way.

Melissa placed a hand on the side of his face. “You’re feeling low. You’re feeling alone, but you aren’t. You’ve done your best, and I need you to understand that. It might feel like you’re being selfish, but you aren’t.”

“It certainly feels like it.”

“Then don’t do it for you. Do it for me. Because you’re my wonderful son, and you’re going to save a lot of people in your life, but only if you’re around. Sleep. I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours.”

He suppose he could do it for her. She had never asked him to stop before, so maybe she had a point. If she believed in him that much, then he could take a few days off. He could rest. He could find the hope that he needed for everyone else.

Scott was completely healed by the time he woke up.


End file.
